Olympic Champions and world record holders
It’s hard to believe that the Olympics Games in Beijing took place nearly a year ago given the many unforgettable performances witnessed by the world. For most people, one athlete’s performances stand out in particular. Michael Phelps undoubtedly took the show with an unprecedented 8 gold medals, 7 world records and 1 Olympic record. In total, Phelps has won more gold medals than any OIympian with 14 and has broken 35 world records the last of which he broke just today at the World Championships.
Phelps is definitely one of the greatest athletes of all time, with more to come. Call me biased, but Phelps’ records are a little overplayed relative to Bolt’s world record performances on the track at 100m, 200m and the 4×100m relay. Here’s why.
Since comparing the two sports directly isn’t an equal comparison, I will represent the records in terms of percentages.
The 50m freestyle and the 100m dash are the shortest sprint races contested at the Olympics in swimming and track and field respectively. a quick look at the world record progression (50m free/100m dash) shows that over the course of 33 years, the 50m freestyle world record has dropped 2.92 seconds, representing a 12.24% change. On the other hand, the 100m dash record (discounting the pre-electronic timing era) has fallen from 10.06 to 9.69; a 3.68% change over 44 years. Furthermore, in the case of swimming, we often see the same record broken multiple times in the same meet. In track, this hardly happens and the time in between record changes is much longer except when someone breaks their own record.
The same comparison can be made for the 100m freestyle and the 200m dash, the next distance up in each respective sport. Starting in 1975, until the 2008 Summer Games in which records were broken in both events, the swimming record fell 7.96% compared to the track record’s 2.27%. Looking at progressions for other records, the drop in the swimming records are much more dramatic over time compared to track records with track records being broken less frequently. It would seem, judging by the rate of world record progression, that swimming records have not approached the limit that track records are at currently.
This is also demonstrated by the fact that over the course of the last 8 years, Phelps has broken his own 200m butterfly record 7 times dropping his record by 2.96%. Usain Bolt broke his own 100m dash record by 0.31% and Michael Johnson’s 200m dash record by only 0.10%. Bolt’s 200 record was even even more impressive due to the fact that many considered Johnson’s 19.32 record as unbreakable. Phelps was able to break 7 records due to the sheer number of event distances and strokes for him to swim. As a versatile and dominant swimmer, he can swim the same distance using multiple strokes. Bolt doesn’t have the same options available to him.
Bolt’s records are a more impressive historic achievement despite the fact that the swimming records are broken with much greater margins and frequency. Swimming records still have some ways to go before athletes physical ability to break them will be questioned. Phelps is no doubt an astonishing athlete, but Bolt’s record breaking performances still awe me in a way that Phelps’ performances never did for me.
I realize my comparisons are highly unscientific and very rough so feel free to tell me I’m wrong. Although there are others with me on this one.
Further reading
- USA Today’s comparison of Bolt and Phelps
- http://kempton.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/usain-bolt-vs-michael-phelps/
yo man hows it going?
i think bolt and phelps are in the same boat. now since we are track runners we both are well acquainted with track’s records and how hard they have been to break but there are many similarites between the two
for one, both are setting records and breaking their own. Both are young athletes and have both yet to unlock their true potential, hence the numerous record breakings.
(as a side note, many of the other records that are being broken are also done with advanced swimsuits. Track spikes on the other hand have pretty much reached its technological peak. Pretty much every sprinter on the world stage are equal in terms of equipment)
second, the rate at which records fall is also inherent to their respective sports. Track records, esp the 200 and 400, are much harder to break and thus their margins are reduced only by small amounts. Thats bc sprinting has a natural human limit. Once you have good form, once u are in top shape, you can only go so fast. Swimming i think is a little different. Due to the technicality (bad spelling i know) of swimming strokes, there is more room for improvement thus allowing for bigger margins of improvement on world records.
On the hand, while Bolt has been blasting world records, he is also doing them at large margins, unprecented by any track athlete in the history of running. Going from 9.69 to 9.58 is crazy and you can bet again he is going to lower the mark in the future. But why would both Bolt and phelps continuously smash records? Because I believe they are the most genetically gifted humans for their respective sport. Phelps has a perfect swimmers body: long torso, long arms, short legs, powerful shoulders. Bolt has a perfect sprinter’s physique: super long legs, super long stride (note since MJ had pretty long legs but a relatively short stride) great upper body strength in balance with the rest.
Any taller and i think bolt would start slowing down
and both have done the unthinkable.
Bolt broke the 200m record. I, along with millions of others, thought it was impossible to break. And why not? the next fastest time every was barely a 19.5 and this was after 14 years the record had been set. MJ ran the second 100m of that race in nearly 9.23 seconds. (which given bolt’s faster top speed and better acceleration, i think his ultimate mark will be around 9.40) So bolt is “infamous” for breaking one of track’s ultimate records
but lets not forget, so has michael. He broke the previously “unreachable” record of 7 golds in a single games set my mark spitz in 1972. Nobody thought that record could be broken but somehow phelps did.
Additionally, swimming has never had any super super star like michael johnson. Ian thorpe had many great marks in most of the freestyle events but in none of them was it talked about that he had swam faster than any other human on earth before him such as was said of michael johnson and his running speed
regardless, lets sit back and watch these two forever ingrain themselves in world history
What now Eric, now that Bolt has run 19.19 for 200m into a headwind?